A few weeks back I talked about attempting one of my financial goals. The goal seemed simple enough, keep my discretionary spending to under $100 a month. Well I’m here to say that I failed that goal miserably. I blew through that $100 dollars in less than 10 days and am now on my second $100 allotment. So I had to ask myself what should people do if they’ve failed a goal? They certainly shouldn’t give up but rather take additional steps so that they are successful in the future:

1. What were you successful at – No matter how badly you performed at your goal you should always find something positive that you accomplished. Sometimes it’s difficult to identify these small successes because people tend to only focus on the overall failure of the goal. This can be demoralizing so look closely, you’ll find a positive accomplishment that you can use to build on to achieve the entire goal.
2. What caused you to fail – This may seem straight forward but it’s not. Don’t focus on the failure as a whole but break them down into specifics. Identify the individual causes and take steps to rectify them. Just make sure you don’t chalk up these issues as a “one time thing” because you are setting yourself up for continuous failure. It’s like a smoker who tries to quit but still smokes on special occasions. First it’s just New Years and before they know it after dinner becomes a “special occasion”. Things will always happen so identify them and work them into achieving your goals.
3. Is this goal still achievable – Sometimes when we set goals we aren’t aware of all the obstacles that can cause us to fail. Failing it once makes us wiser so take advantage of your new found wisdom and run this goal through SMART again. You may discover that the goal was too big to begin with and will have to be changed all together.
4. Approach the goal differently– If you feel that the goal is still achievable but you are having problems making it mesh well with your life style then take a different approach. This can mean setting mini goals or arranging your schedule so it lines up with goal requirements better.

Now applying this to my goal of keeping discretionary spending under $100 a month…

1. I successfully brought my lunch to work nearly every day except one. I need to apply this sort of discipline to other parts of my spending.
2. I failed this goal for two reasons: 1) buying coffee (this is drinking coffee throughout the day and not just in the morning) and 2) going out with friends for birthday week. These were concerns when I first made this goal and apparently I was correct.  I’ve been struggling with the coffee issue for some time and just lack the motivation to resolve it. That’s why next week when I go into work I’ll be bringing my french press in hopes I can make a cup of coffee I’ll enjoy. Birthday week is no excuse as well because there is always another event around the corner. I need to account for these days ahead of time.
3. Looking at this goal I still consider it S.MA.R.T approved.
   • Specific – Control my discretionary spending
   • Measurable – Only spend $100
   • Achievable – Since my budget includes things like dinning out and entertainment I shouldn’t need to spend more than a $100 making it achievable.
   • Realistic – Yes it is realistic for the same reason it is achievable.
   • Timely – It’s one month long which seem to be the total length of my spending cycle.
4. Taking out $100 at the beginning of the month and walking around with it isn’t working for me. I also need to take into account that I will be going out with my friends at least once a month.  So going forward I will allocate $40 a month for outings with friends. Then each week I will only walk around with $15 dollars. If I spend it then that’s it. There you have it, the goal is still the same I’m just attacking it from another direction.

I’m curious to know how you dealt with failed goals?

-mfd-

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In my recent goal review I set a new short term financial goal, “Keep my personal spending to under $100/month”. Well we are now in a new month and yesterday I finally took out my $100 for the month. I think this will be an extremely tough goal for me and I am doubtful I can achieve it. Now I know I shouldn’t be so negative accomplishing this goal will be a big change for me.

Why am I so doubtful?

- I’m already cautious about my spending and still spend $200 – $300 a month
- April is my birthday so I have a feeling I’ll be out a bit
- My friends are still in the spending phase of their lives
- I’m working weekends right now which means I usually go out for lunch

What can I do to make it happen?

- Go out for coffee less
- Be more diligent in bringing my lunch to work
- Take greater care in putting expenses on our joint account instead of paying it out of my pocket
- Try and stay positive!!!

Its been 1 day and I’ve already spent $11.50 because I didn’t bring breakfast or lunch yesterday but today is a new day. I will stay on budget. I will increase my cash flow. I will achieve my financial goals!

Staying positive with goals is tough. How do you do it?

-mfd-

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Reviewing your goals and creating news ones is key to being successful. After looking at my goals for 2009 I’ve given myself a B thus far .  I’ve completed some of my short term goals and most of my other goals are on track. I do believe I could have done better on some but I still have 4 months left in my short term goals to improve.

My Financial Goals

Short term (1-6 months) - Save $21k for RRSP. Keep my personal spending to under $100/month. I manage to contribute the $21k to my RRSP but one of my more lingering issues has been my personal spending. I usually spend about $200-$300 a month and that doesn’t include gifts. I feel this is excessive and if I can control it a lot of my other goals will come together.

Intermediate (6-12 months) - Increase our bi-weekly mortgage payment by 25% and a lump sum of $8k. I’ve increased our mortgage payments by 25% but still haven’t put down the lump sum because I haven’t filed my taxes. I’m also considering refinancing my mortgage now that the fixed rates are crazy low.

Long term (12-24 months) - Save $30k for our emergency fund. This has completely stalled now that some wedding expenses have come into the picture like the Hawaiian honeymoon. I’m keeping positive that we can work at this but probably not as quickly as I’d like.

My Blogging Goals

Short term (1-6 months) -Write 4 posts a week. I’ve done alright here. I usually post 3 to 4 times a week. However I’d like to post more and make sure the quality is there. Until I feel that I’m more consistent I’ll leave this one as uncompleted which is fine since I have another 4 months to work on this goal.

Intermediate (6-12 months) - Have 100 subscribers. I know I set this as a 6-12 month goal but I was hoping I would be further along then I am. I’ll continue to write and list my articles on the various carnivals. Maybe one day an article will be chosen as an editor’s pick.

Long term (12-24 months) – Have 250 subscribers. See Intermediate goal.

My Health Goals

Short term (1-6 months) - Join a gym and go 3 times a week. I’ve been doing really well on this. I’ve only had issues going to the gym during the week I was sick and the week my fiance was sick. I’m not ready to mark this goal off yet. It’s really easy to fall off the wagon. I’ll probably leave this uncompleted for the full 6 months.

Intermediate (6-12 months) - Lose 30 pounds. This is going along nicely. I easily lost 11 lbs but I think I’ve plateaued. I haven’t been watching my food intake as closely as I should. This should hopefully change in the next month or two as I increase the intensity of my workouts.

Long term (12-24 months) - Get my weight to 170. See intermediate goal.

How I’m doing on some of my goals got me down a little. What tricks do you have to stay positive?

-mfd-

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The key to achieving success in anything is setting goals. Goals allow you to break up larger ambitions into smaller stepping-stones and successes. Setting goals at variable lengths of time also draws a map of where you need to get to as well as gauge your progression so that you can adjust your goals along the way as needed.

Goals can be dangerous as well since setting large or unrealistic goals can be discouraging when you are unsuccessful in meeting them. As well it devalues any of the hard work you may have put into the task. Setting the proper time horizon on a goal is also important in keeping you motivated to continue the path to success. If you set the goal too far into the future you either put it off until its too late to achieve the goal or you lose interest and consider the entire thing a failure.

Luckily people have come up with a way of helping you set SMART goals. SMART goals being defined as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. Great definitions for this can be found at Clever Dude Finances and Lazy Man and Money

My Financial Goals

Short term (1-6 months) - Save $21k for RRSP. I met my initial goal of having $13k by the end of the year, however at the last minute I decided to take advantage of my addition contribution room and tax bracket and now have to save another $8k in 2 months. It will be close and our net worth will do some funny things for the next couple of months since most of our savings is now in our tfsa.

Intermediate (6-12 months) - Increase our bi-weekly mortgage payment by 25% and a lump sum of $8k. We’ve already started this goal by canceling some unnecessary additions to the phone and cable bill as well as increase the amount each of us puts into our joint account. The lump sum will come from out tax returns.

Long term (12-24 months) - Save $30k for our emergency fund. This is about 1 year of living expenses for us and should be easily achievable as we account for $1k of savings as part of our joint bills.

My Blogging Goals

Short term (1-6 months) -Write 4 posts a week. I’m already finding this difficult to do. I have plenty of time off from work but I’m a major procrastinator. This will be a big accomplishment for me as I can apply this focus to other goals. Hopefully I will eventually get up too 6 or 7 posts a week.

Intermediate (6-12 months) - Have 100 subscribers. I don’t know how easily this will happen but I guess it all depends on my content and me maintaining my short-term goal.

Long term (12-24 months) - Have 250 subscribers. See intermediate goal.

My Health Goals

Short term (1-6 months) - Join a gym and go 3 times a week. So I’ve already joined a Good Life gym at a really good price through a deal that my fiancé has as a teacher. I don’t think I can start going until February because I believe the teachers union does a mass enrollment at that time. The key here is also getting over my procrastination.

Intermediate (6 -12 months) - Lose 30 pounds. I’m a fairly big guy weighing in at 215lbs (I’ve lost 5 pounds already) so this shouldn’t be too hard to achieve. I should be able to lose the first 10 pounds with some healthy changes to my diet and the next 20 should come off if I keep up my short-term goal. I need to achieve this goal to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer charity ride with my brother who is a 3-time cancer survivor. This ride is a 2 day event from Toronto to Niagara Falls and requires you to raise a minimum of $2500 dollars to participate. As well I need to lose weight for the upcoming wedding (everyone wants to look good in wedding photos). The ride is in June and the wedding is in July.

Long term (12 -24 months) - Get my weight to 170. This goal is health motivated as well as financially motivated. Not only do I want to live a long time but also once we get married we will be getting life insurance and want as low a premium as possible.

If anyone has any advise on helping me meet these goals (especially the blogging and health goals) please let me know.

-mfd-

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